Rejection

Rejection. It is not a feeling that can necessarily be described in a definition. It is a punch to your gut, a yearning to retreat, an awkward laugh that attempts to mask the overwhelming shame that you do not want to express.  

As a high school girl, I am no stranger to rejection. For some reason, boys have never wanted to court me. They have had no desire to ask me to a dance, take me on dates, nor meet my parents. They have not wanted to get to know me on a deeper level. It can lead to me questioning what is wrong with me. Why am I never the girl that they choose to be with?  

I first blame my physical attributes. I blame my nose for being hooked when you look at it from the side. I blame my teeth for being too big. I blame my waist for being too wide. I blame my chest and butt for being too flat. But then I realize these boys do give me attention when it comes to my body. They want to sleep with me. They want to touch me. And sometimes I let them, just so I can feel a little less lonely. I have a saying, “I can make any boy fall in love with me for one night.”  

After I realize my shortcomings do not stem from my beauty, I must question my character. I blame my interests for not being what all the boys like. I am not keen on sports or cars. I have a certain disdain for modern rap music. In all honesty I don’t like boys very much, but I want them to like me, nonetheless.  

I am interested in stand-up comedy. I study the art religiously. I am fascinated by true crime. There are certain cases that leave me lying in my bed for hours on end reviewing the details. Ed Kemper has always been an extremely troubling case to me. How a single person could be so disturbingly disturbed disturbs me. My favorite movies are West Side Story, Good Will Hunting, and the Truman Show. In my spare time I enjoy solitary activities like reading and writing. I watch an exorbitant amount of TV. 

When reviewing all the things I like, it honestly makes me like myself even more. I think that my interests make me a more interesting person. Next, I question the way I am perceived by others. Now this is where it gets awfully self-deprecating. I can imagine that I am perceived by others in a myriad of ways, yet there is no way for me to either prove or disprove these theories. I just go on wondering, “Am I too loud? Am I too awkward? Do I talk too much? Do I talk too little? Am I boring? Is there something about me that is despicable from the moment you meet me? I’ve met people like that. Where from the moment their mouth opens you really want it to shut.” After approximately an hour of going through this list of possible character flaws that could lead to no guys having interest in me, I always come to the same conclusion: even if that’s so, none of them? Not a single boy has an interest in me beyond a sexual one.  

The reason why I am pondering this so deeply now is that my best friend has fallen in love. She has been swept off her feet by a boy named Matthew. He is nice enough. I do not mind his presence. What is really irking me is the fact that she no longer wants me around, at least not as much as she used to. I have other friends, but I do not like them as much as I like her. She has always encouraged me to be a better person. She defends me even when I do not have the courage to defend myself. Even when I am not there to hear some stupid boys call me easy or accuse me of having no self-respect, she will tell them that they do not know chicken shit about me and have no right to make any assumptions about my character. 

I have never genuinely wanted a relationship. Like any girl I have fantasized about a boy doing and saying all the right things. Taking me by the hand and slow dancing with me under the stars as we listen to a beautiful rendition of Tu es partout by the elegant Edith Piaf. Then we lay down on grass that has been dampened by dew and stare at the stars. For hours we talk about everything that has happened in our lives and how that has impacted the person we have become. We laugh rather than cry when we share our sob stories, because what is the point of crying when the deed has already been done? Then there is a moment. We look down from the stars. We intensely stare into each other’s eyes. We are both nervous as hell. He sweeps the hair from in front of my face to behind my ear. He says, “I really like you. Not just because of your hazel eyes. Not just because of your perfectly hooked nose. Not just because of what you like. But I like you because you are you Frances Marie Lawrence.” And then we kiss.  

Of course, this fantasy remains in fantasy land. Every single time I meet a new guy I have a glimmer of hope that they could be this guy. Maybe I have read far too many romance novels, but when I fall in love, I don’t want it to be with a Matthew. I want it to be with a Darcy or an Augustus Waters. I want to have an epic love story that is so beautiful that one day I could write it into a New York Times Best Seller. 

Maybe that’s hopeful of me. God knows I have yet to meet a guy who has even wondered what my favorite book is. I have yet to meet a guy who has a favorite book of his own. I don’t mean to appear pompous. I know I am not Avant Garde. I am simply a girl who hangs onto hope that one day I will meet a boy who shares some type of common interest with me. A boy who is fascinated by me. A boy who adores me.